In a report issued last month, state regulators explained the failures that led to a natural-gas explosion that killed 12-year-old Linda “Michellita” Rogers in her northwest Dallas home in 2018. The blast also injured her parents, brother and grandmother, who have undergone physical therapy and mental health counseling.
The Railroad Commission of Texas found that natural gas supplier Atmos Energy failed to detect gas leaks in the days and months leading up to Michellita’s death, drawing conclusions similar to those of federal investigators. Atmos had sent crews to Michellita’s neighborhood in response to two other house fires on the same block before the fatal explosion.
A young girl lost her life, a home was destroyed, and a family is bereaved. The harm is staggering, but not the official punishment that Atmos faces for its alleged safety violations: a total of $1.6 million in civil penalties.
That is tantamount to pennies for a company that reported $601 million in profits last fiscal year.
Records show that the Railroad Commission cited Atmos for four violations: failure to conduct continuous surveillance of the Dallas gas distribution system, lack of adequate training and procedures to identify leaks, failure to consider the possibility of gas migration after the fires at two houses that were connected to the same distribution main, and failure to ensure that personnel classifying leaks were properly trained for those investigations. Atmos crews used leak-detection equipment in wet or windy conditions for which it was not designed, according to the state report.
Per state law, each safety violation carries a penalty of up to $200,000 per day, capped at $2 million for “any related series of violations.” The Railroad Commission of Texas said Atmos was out of compliance two days for each of the four items for which it was cited, hence the $400,000 fine per item that added up to $1.6 million.
A spokesman for the Railroad Commission told Dallas Morning News reporter Holly Hacker that it was the highest pipeline safety fine that the agency has imposed.
It is not enough. The current fine structure hardly exerts any pressure on gas utility companies to take safety rules seriously. We urge lawmakers to put some teeth into state legislation. Unfortunately, this has not been a priority in recent years. Even bills to increase modest civil penalties for violations unrelated to pipeline safety failed to gain traction in the last two legislative sessions.
State and federal regulators are reportedly working on a recommendation by the National Transportation Safety Board to audit how Atmos responds to gas leaks and explosions and how it protects its pipelines. As part of that review, the Railroad Commission must consider whether Atmos is doing its job as the regulated monopoly that delivers natural gas to North Texas. Granting a company a utility monopoly is a matter of enormous trust and privilege; the company gets an assured profit but must meet a high standard of performance. If a review shows that Atmos cannot meet this standard, there are other natural gas utilities that can.
Atmos has replaced miles of pipelines in Dallas since the 2018 explosion, and it said it is committed to improving safety. Texas legislators and regulators shouldn’t just stand by, though. They need to get serious about enforcing the rules. The risk of inaction is that more Texans will pay the price by being injured or killed for a failure to follow proper safety precautions or a failure of state oversight.
